She started stew with that bad meat, some turnips and carrots they must have stolen from some farmer, thickened it with rye flour that could only have come from the same source. It still smelled just a bit wrong as it cooked, but they all sniffed appreciatively when their tasks took them near the pot. She supposed that since they themselves smelled so rancid, they probably couldn't tell there was anything wrong with the stew. She wasn't worried about Kaari; as petrified as the young woman was, she wouldn't be able to eat a bite.
She mixed up flatbread to bake on a griddle improvised from a shield no one seemed to want. She kept her eyes and ears open.
This was not a band that had been together for very long. Even robbers could develop camaraderie and a kind of family feeling; this lot showed none of that. And more telling, there was a great deal of grumbling going on over how the leader had handled the division of the latest spoils. Kaari had excited lust and avarice in equal portions, and the fact that the leader had taken her for himself and clearly had no intention of sharing her had made no few of these men very angry indeed. They were even angrier when they realized that the women had carried nothing of any great value with them, meaning that Kaari was the only “prize” to be had. Add to that, there were some who, unlike the leader, were clearly not happy that he had risked the wrath — and curses — of a Wise Woman, and you had the situation where, after the sun had set and the food was ready, the men did not gather together to eat in company, but rather sat apart, in twos and threes or by themselves, glaring at their leader who sat with a terrified Kaari, her clothing pulled all about as he pawed at her breasts and fumbled at her thighs.
Meanwhile, Annukka had not been idle.
Into the wood of the fire she built, into the food she prepared, she sang spells.
Dissension, rebellion, discontent and rancor. Jealousy, envy, greed and anger. She built on the unhappiness that was already there, fed it and nurtured it. With every cheerful crackle of the flames, with every whiff of smoke, waft of cooking meat, her spells seeped into them. By the time she came around to serve the men, the pot of resentment was seething and ready to boil.
She brought the food around first to the chief and Kaari. “I like not the look of your men, warrior,” she said, handing him a bowl of stew and the best piece of the flatbread. He pulled his hand out from under Kaari's shirt and aimed a cuff at Annukka's head; she evaded it.
“Mind your tongue, hag,” he spat. “What have my men to do with you or you with them?”
“Only that, without you, who would protect us, my apprentice and I?” she whined. “They look at her with greed in their eyes and at you with envy. Have a care for daggers in the dark — ”
This time, the blow he aimed did connect. Kaari gasped and made as if to run to her, but the man grabbed her and pulled her roughly back beside him. “Mind your place, slut,” he growled, and commenced eating his stew. He offered Kaari none, which was just as well, seeing what was in it.
Annukka had rolled with the blow and made a great show of getting slowly to her feet as if he had hurt her greatly, when in fact she had gotten worse blows from her reindeer butting or kicking her. She hobbled away to serve the rest of the men.
As she brought them their portions, she made sure that they heard her muttering curses against him under her breath, but interspersed with those curses were little suggestions only they could hear, things that were not meant to register with them consciously.
“You would be a better, a fairer leader than he is. You are smarter, tougher, more cunning. You would never risk the curses of a Wise Woman. You would get her on your side and she would work her magic to bring you wealth and more women. And you would have the wench all to yourself. You should have her, you should be the leader. You deserve it. What has he done that he should get it all? He’s not as good a fighter, his luck is bad and he keeps all the best things for himself.'
Their minds drank in her words, they ate her spells, and when they were all served she brought around the beer and wine in whatever containers she could find. But she had also worked a greater magic on the drink, making it a hundred times more potent than it had been. And with every flagon, mug and helmet full, she whispered into their minds.
And on the third round — they did.
She was not sure what started it, for her back was to them at the time. It might well have been that the fool finally decided he was going to try to have Kaari in front of them all, rather than just fumbling with her. All it would have taken, as raw as their tempers were, was a flash of breast to set them off. All she knew for certain was that one man began shouting. And suddenly the entire encampment was a battlezone.
She had been ready and had planned to get to Kaari, but before she could turn around, Kaari was at her side.
“I th-thought I g-guessed what you were about,” the young woman stammered, still white-faced, as they began to back slowly toward the cook-fire. There had been a man there guarding what she did, making sure she did not make off with a knife. Now he was gone, part of the melee, which was swirling around the erstwhile leader.
As soon as they reached the dying fire, she equipped them both with wicked long blades that she had been eyeing for some time. “Cut anyone who comes near us,” Annukka said grimly. “Go for the throat. They will be too drunk to defend themselves, I think.”
Kaari did not argue. Several hours of being mauled by a brute, with the promise of worse to come, was enough to make even the gentlest of girls prepared to take matters into her own hands. With one hand she held the knife; with the other she tried to put her clothing into order. Annukka's attention was not on her, but on the fighting and on what she was doing about it.
She sang a song so old that she didn't know the exact meaning of the words, only that she had been told it was a song of battle-madness intended to make men fight against their enemies until they were cut to ribbons. And since every man here seemed to consider every other man his enemy…
With ax and sword and knife, with sticks of wood still ablaze from the fire and with their bare hands, they tore each other apart.
It didn't last very long; it couldn't, not when you had men who were gouging out eyes and hamstringing each other. The leader went down first, with the killing blow being any one of a dozen lethal strikes aimed at him. Then they turned on each other.
